


Curiosity

by Waistcoat35



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Fluff, Hellhounds, Implied/Referenced Potential Animal Death, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, No dogs were harmed in the making of this, One Shot Collection, Puppies, Seriously don't worry no dogs will die it's just an initially mentioned possibility, Softie Crowley (Good Omens), remember that dog that Nanny Ashtoreth had in the book?, slightly anyway, the ships are either implied or background, this is that dog, yeah neither did I until like an hour ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 04:58:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: Many years before the business with the Antichrist, Crowley had, through completely accidental means, acquired a puppy. A puppy that was rather not of Earth. This is the story of a stolen dog, a lonely young boy, demons who feel things and happy accidents.





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know??? I just remembered that Ashtoreth had a "large grey dog" in the book and got ideas. Given that he dresses like a muddier version of a countryman who owns a pack of hounds, and the fact that he had a lot of knowledge and dialogue in the scene where the hellhound is released, I ran with the headcanon that Hastur breeds hellhounds and is something of an expert in them. He definitely does NOT have a soft spot for dogs. No sir. Not at all.

He got the dog a good couple of years before all the Antichrist business. He’d had to pop down to hell to sort some paperwork stuff out, and on the way out he’d heard a telltale yelping and growling from down a corridor. In Hell, it is not best advised to go down corridors you do not know, especially if you are uncertain as to what is at the end of them – you can always assume, however, that you will meet with something unpleasant.

He ignored all mental warnings and went down the corridor, because that noise was a Dog Noise and though they might be significantly more dangerous dogs than what humans are used to, a Dog is a Dog. He came across, in one of the vaults, a litter of hellhound puppies, relatively young from the looks of things, being tended to by none other than Duke Hastur. He thought about legging it then, before the other demon noticed him and decided to attempt a new jab, but he was stopped by the fact that Hastur appeared to be holding one of the pups to his chest and looking at it rather mournfully.

Eager to figure out what exactly was going on, Crowley cleared his throat and attempted to look like he’d been casually passing. “Something wrong with it?” Hastur looked up hastily, seeming to waver between dropping the puppy and holding it closer to him now that he was faced with a visitor.

“Course not, Crowley, you damned fool. Bred the things meself, didn’t I? Something wrong with ‘em, indeed.” Crowley shrugged, maintaining a somewhat nonchalant expression. Acting like you cared too much was a key way to either give Hastur the upper hand or drive him away.

“Course, of course, didn’t mean it like that, obviously. Only – you don’t look too _happy _with the thing.” Hastur scowled, presumably due to the fact that somebody had noticed him experiencing some form of emotion, and attempted to shrug his shoulders. With the weight of the little dog in his arms, it somewhat failed.

“Gotta kill it, ‘aven’t I?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. Unless you were Ligur, talking to Hastur was far too much like pulling teeth. “Have you?” A deeper scowl for his efforts.

“It’s a runt, innit? Got to kill it, might let Hell down otherwise. Weak link an’ all that. Beelzebub’s orders, nothin’ to be done about it.” He looked distraught, which on Hastur’s face was about as alarming as a kitten unexpectedly pulling out a switchblade. Crowley raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t going to attempt to console Hastur, because he valued his life, and also because he had an date – _appointment _– with Aziraphale at the Natural History museum that afternoon and he couldn’t go to it if he were being tortured on a rack somewhere for implying that demons have feelings. He pulled his sunglasses a little lower and gazed at the puppy.

It was rather sweet-looking, really, he knew that they could change to fit what their master wanted but as of the current moment they resembled their mother. Hastur’s own hound, Lilac (he told everyone it was Neck-Twister or some such rubbish, but Crowley had always been exceptionally good at overhearing things one might not want to be overheard,) had always looked like a somewhat bedraggled Irish Wolfhound, and so at present the little creature was a heap of scruffy silver fur. Where its siblings were romping around on the ground, snapping and chasing and already trying out little puppy snarls, it seemed quite content to be cradled by the gruff demon, and its eyes were large and dark and unexpectedly placid. It did not act like a regular hellhound puppy.

It was perhaps a good thing then that Crowley did not act like a regular demon.

He shrugged. “Shame really. But – I s’pose, if Beezle says you’ve gotta kill it then you’ve gotta kill it. Him. Her. Whatever. Think you a right wuss, if you let it go. Directly defying orders, if you keep it. If you let it live and consciously choose not to kill it.” Hastur’s scowl was back and steadily darkening, where it had previously faded as he continued looking down at the puppy.

“Al_right_, what’s yer point?”

Crowley half-smirked. Got him.

“My point _is_ that there’s nothing defiant about putting the thing down for a second while you go and fetch a sack or something to put it in. No harm in leaving the door ajar. The rest won’t want to stray from their mother, after all. Can’t get in trouble if the little tyke just…y’know, wanders off.” He grinned at his own newfound brilliance, and received a blank look in return. He sighed, and decided to elaborate.

“I’m just _saying_, if it escapes before you can kill it, then it’s not your _fault_, is it?”

Another blank look. A blink. “But you just said – they won’t want to leave their mother.”

Crowley resisted the urge to scrub a hand over his face. He’d never pegged Hastur as the brightest button in the box, but Christ on a flipping _unicycle_. “Hastur. Listen to me. To what I am saying. Right. Now.” The other nods, brows furrowed as he watches Crowley intently. “Puppies are curious, right? Like to get into all sorts, right? You know that better than I do, you’re the one who breeds the hellhounds. If you nip out for a second, if you leave the door slightly open, _assuming _that the puppies will stay with their mum, well, _they_ might, sure. But if you put that one down, and you happen to be standing pretty _close_ to the door when you do, it might get curious. As puppies do. But you can’t predict that. Not your fault, like I said. Say he gets curious, he wanders over to the door, he wanders out. Someone passing by sees him, and, y’know, valuable animals, these days. Quite sought-after in the ranks, I understand. They pick him up, don’t know where he’s come from. No clue that he’s a runt. No _idea_ what Beezy had in store for him. They pick him up. They wander off. Dog lives to chew another day, you’re not to blame, Beelzebub doesn’t know, everyone’s satisfied.”

Hastur blinked a few more times, and it appeared it had finally dawned on him. “I don’t trust you, Crowley.” Crowley shrugged.

“Be a funny old world anyway, demons going around trusting each other. Besides. You wouldn’t trust someone who was about to steal your dog, would you?”

“I s’pose not.”

Crowley held the door slightly farther open for Hastur to step out, and let him ease it to. “That’s it. Bit more. No, bit less, nothing could squeeze through that. It’s like you want them to stay where they are,” he hissed. Eventually it was done, and Hastur walked back down the corridor, slightly more at ease with himself. They’d almost got on, once. Less so in recent years, after Crowley had started changing with the times, far too quickly for Hastur to keep up. They’d never had much in common, Crowley being the less demonic, but they’d worked well enough together, even after Hastur had climbed the ranks and Crowley had stayed firmly at the bottom. Shame things had changed, really.

He looked down, and sure enough a small, damp nose was poking out through the gap left by the door. Checking that there was nobody else around, Crowley knelt down and began to call it softly, attempting to sound encouraging and somewhat like he knew what he was doing. Eventually, it was far out enough that it could’ve counted as having “wandered off”, and he quickly scooped it up to a light whine of protest. He leaned his weight onto the door until it shut all the way, and bolted it. True, it would look better for Hastur’s story if it were left ajar, but the Duke would probably come after him if the other five puppies were to wander off for real.

He headed back down the corridor as Hastur was coming back up, and gave him a slight nod. “Good luck getting rid of that runt, Hastur!” he called, and he made sure his voice carried. If Dagon noticed that his jacket was a bit squirmy on the way out, they didn’t say anything. There was no end to strange things in Hell, after all.


End file.
